Rose is more aggressively modernized than I'd prefer, and I get bad vibes from Denny. Valjean tells Cosette her mother's story and name. He was also a businessman and was widely noted for his social engagement and philanthropy. 5 (December 1962). For a better shopping experience, please upgrade now. Oh, these bloody clergy! The first was by a contemporary and friend of Hugo in 1862; more than a hundred . This is a moderated subreddit. Distraught to find Cosette gone, he heeds the voice and goes. : Les Misrables by Victor Hugo (2009, Trade. the Paris uprising on 56 June 1832, following the death of General Lamarque, the only French leader who had sympathy towards the working class. I enjoyed the book a lot, but lately I've been pondering translations. I think he has done a very good job of bringing out the best in Les Miserables while still preserving everything that makes Hugo so wonderful. Marius fulfills her request and goes into a tavern to read the letter. Thankfully, that has now been rectified, since the original title is being restored for the Penguin Deluxe paperback edition in February. You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with As there is always more misery at the bottom of the ladder than there is fraternity at the top, everything was given away, so to speak, before it was received, like water on thirsty soil. He crawls underneath the cart, manages to lift it, and frees him. A somewhat abridged translation that many find appealing, but some sentences are shortened or simplified, some paragraphs eliminated, and Hugos provocative section on slang and the criminal world (IV, 7, 1-4) shunted off to an appendix. Thnardier enlists the aid of the Patron-Minette, a well-known and feared gang of murderers and robbers. Modern English, very readable, well-footnoted. lightweight paperback preferable for practical reasons. He complained that the characters were crude stereotypes who all "speak very well but all in the same way". I don't know whether it will be read by everyone, but it is meant for everyone. You can likely figure that out by reading the same pages from different editions online or in bookstores. Valjean, learning that Cosette's lover is fighting, is at first relieved, but an hour later, he puts on a National Guard uniform, arms himself with a gun and ammunition, and leaves his home. Fahnestock and McAfee is the best unabridged translation, and, along with Denny, often regarded as the best one. The philanthropist and his daughter enteractually Valjean and Cosette. He asked his mistresses, Lonie d'Aunet and Juliette Drouet, to tell him about life in convents. The two old women and the old man all lived on those fifteen hundred francs.And when some village cur came to Digne, the bishop still managed to find a way of entertaining him, thanks to the assiduous scrimping and saving of Madame Magloire and Mademoiselle Baptistines clever management.One day, when the bishop had been in Digne for about three months, he said, With all that, things are pretty tight!They certainly are! cried Madame Magloire. New York: Signet Classics / Penguin Random House, 2013. I've read it, as have millions of other English speakers, and highly recommend it. Also published in an abridged edition by New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1996; 2003. The bishop fell silent for a moment, then suddenly turned to the hospital director.Monsieur, he said, how many beds do you think you could get in this room alone?Monseigneurs dining room? cried the astonished director.The bishop sized up the room, giving the impression he was taking measurements and making calculations by eye alone.It could easily hold twenty beds! he mumbled, as though talking to himself. Valjean fakes his own death by allowing himself to fall into the ocean. The two respectable translations of Les Misrables are by Lee Fahnestock and norman MacAfee from Signet Classics (a revision of the first translation by Charles Wilbour from 1862, unabridged with a smattering of notes), and Christine Donougher from Penguin Classics (heavily annotated), which may in time become the definitive Les Mis. Read this book online: HTML (as submitted), PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/135.html.images, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/135/135-h/135-h.htm, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/135.epub3.images, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/135.epub.images, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/135.epub.noimages, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/135.kf8.images, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/135.kindle.images, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/135/135-0.txt. Les Misrables has been popularized through numerous adaptations for film, television and the stage, including a musical. Hugo wan't just a novelist, he was a poet and a playwright and Denny . *By "best" I'm meaning easiest to read unabridged version. I'm at the point where Valjean is about to steal the silver (spoilers!). The only problem I had with the Donougher was the decision to go with an english title. This is your rightful home, here.The next day, the twenty-six poor were moved into the bishops palace and the bishop was at the hospital.Monsieur Myriel had no property, his family having lost everything in the Revolution. He tells Valjean he realizes he was wrong, because the authorities have identified someone else as the real Jean Valjean, have him in custody, and plan to try him the next day. 66 by Victor Hugo. There are eight English translations of Les Miserables, shown below in chronological order. Since languages are, of course, not directly equivalent, translation is as much an art as a skill, and translators have their individual ethos and goals in rendering a text in another language. Few families had known the Myriel family before the Revolution.Monsieur Myriel had to endure the fate of every newcomer in a small town, where there are always plenty of mouths blathering and not many brains working. When Enjolras confronts him about this, he admits his identity and his orders to spy on the students. Javert comes to see Valjean again. A template for Hugo's novel was Les Mystres de Paris (The Mysteries of Paris), a serial novel of similar length which enjoyed great success on its appearance in 184243, by Eugne Sue. This is the [translation] to read. It went like this:carriage upkeep and travel expensesBeef broth for the sick in the hospital 1500 livresFor the society of maternal charity of Aix 250 livresFor the society of maternal charity of Draguignan 250 livresFor abandoned children 500 livresFor orphans 500 livrestotal 3000 livresAnd that was Monsieur Myriels budget.As for the cost of episcopal services, redemptions, dispensations, baptisms, sermons, consecrations of churches and chapels, marriages and so on, the bishop took from the rich all the more greedily for giving it all to the poor.It wasnt long before offerings of money poured in. Javascript is not enabled in your browser. It addresses England as well as Spain, Italy as well as France, Germany as well as Ireland, the republics that harbour slaves as well as empires that have serfs. He travels to attend the trial and there reveals his true identity. In fact, I'd probably recommend Wilbour their translation for a first read, even over the more colloquial Rose. After leaving Marius at his grandfather's house, Valjean asks to be allowed a brief visit to his own home, and Javert agrees. Translation and introduction by Norman Denny, Folio Press, 1976. He seemed to think there was something wrong with Hugo's novel. - : Les Miserables : Hugo, Victor: Welcome back. When Julie Rose took on Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, two previous English translations dominated bookstore shelves. Wilbour's translation, though a bit archaic in its language at times, stays fairly true to the original French version. [36] The Catholic Church placed it on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.[37]. The novel contains various subplots, but the main thread is the story of ex-convict Jean Valjean, who becomes a force for good in the world but cannot escape his criminal past. Denny is sometimes regarded as the best, most poetic translation, though it is abridged, as it removed about 200 pgs of (if i remember right) something like descriptions of sewer systems. For the musical theatre adaptation, see, Volume IV: The Idyll in the Rue Plumet and the Epic in the Rue St. Denis, Novelist Susanne Alleyn has argued that "the phrase. Theres been a mistake, Im telling you. . When Gavroche goes outside the barricade to collect more ammunition from the dead National Guardsmen, he is shot dead. None of the adaptations can do the book justice. . Its likely the easiest translation to read as its written more like a contemporary novel, but the language can be quite jarring. Translation is difficult for many reasons, including the fact that a good translation needs to be true to the original and able to stand on its own for a new audience, as explained in a 2008 NPR story. L. Gauthier wrote in Le Monde of 17 August 1862: "One cannot read without an unconquerable disgust all the details Monsieur Hugo gives regarding the successful planning of riots. I like the "jarring modernism" of Rose's translation. The next day, Valjean is sitting in the Champ de Mars. Everything about it was on the grand scale, the bishops apartments, the drawing rooms, the bedrooms, the main courtyard, which was huge, with covered arcades in the old Florentine style, and the gardens planted with magnificent trees. Denny. Press J to jump to the feed. Then the Revolution came along, events spiraled, parliamentary families were wiped out, chased away, hunted, scattered. The author also states to the reader that ponine anonymously threw the note to Valjean. . It said that some passages "exclusively intended for the French readers of the book" were being omitted, as well as "[a] few scattered sentences reflecting on slavery" because "the absence of a few antislavery paragraphs will hardly be complained of by Southern readers." There are many film adaptations of the book, and the stage and movie musical version, but the book is so much richer. I've tried researching it myself, but I can't seem to come to a conclusion on which is the BEST translation of Hugo's Les Miserables. For more information, please see our He is still not certain if he wants to protect Marius or kill him. The Wretched, Doneagher (sp? I've been DYING to read it, and finally have the time - so I want the best experience! However, several alternatives have been used, including The Miserables, The Wretched, The Miserable Ones, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, The Victims, and The Dispossessed. Wonderful annotations and footnotes. In many ways, the best translation is the one that you enjoy. I. Monsieur MyrielIn 1815, Monsieur Charles-Franois-Bienvenu Myriel was bishop of Digne.1 He was an elderly man of about seventy-five and he had occupied the seat of Digne since 1806.There is something we might mention that has no bearing whatsoever on the tale we have to tellnot even on the background. When no one volunteers to lift the cart, even for pay, he decides to rescue Fauchelevent himself. Valjean broods over Myriel's words. ran out of passwords / shadow banned on all platforms / lost in translation Down with the pope! The fact that this 'digression' occupies such a large part of the text demands that it be read in the context of the 'overarching structure' discussed above. In the English-speaking world, the novel is usually referred to by its original French title. One biographer noted that "the digressions of genius are easily pardoned". He also slipped personal anecdotes into the plot. Valjean escapes through the sewers, carrying Marius's body. However, a man covers the muzzle of the soldier's gun with his hand. I feel like this translation is true to the original French (I compared a few passages with my limited . No one could say; all that was known was that, when he came back from Italy, he was a priest.In 1804,5 Monsieur Myriel was the cur of Brignolles.6 He was already old and lived like a real recluse in profound seclusion.Around the time of the coronation, a small parish matterwho can remember what now?took him to Paris. Valjean pays the Thnardiers 1,500 francs, and he and Cosette leave the inn. So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the agethe degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of women by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual nightare not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless. Thnardier then demands that Valjean pay a thousand crowns, but Valjean and Cosette leave. And then, how the hell does he do the rounds by post chaise in such mountainous terrain? The Wilbour (1862) and Hapgood (1887) translations use old-fashioned English which some find pleasant and some find clunky. 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